Stories of impact & change · Chess for Development
Chess and life skills at the
East Africa Cup
Every June, the East Africa Cup brings hundreds of young people from across the region together for one of East Africa’s biggest cross-border youth gatherings. In 2024, Iyanna Foundation ran the chess programme — and used the board to teach a lot more than openings and endgames.
Now in its 21st year, the East Africa Cup took place in Moshi, at the foot of Kilimanjaro, during the last week of June 2024. Alongside football and basketball, the week is built around daily seminars on leadership, conflict resolution and child protection — the same themes that sit at the heart of Iyanna Foundation’s own Reflective Leadership work.
On 20 June, more than 75 teenagers and young adults from schools and organisations across East Africa took part in a dedicated Chess and Life Skills session. Rather than treating chess as a stand-alone sport, facilitators paired every lesson on the board with a lesson off it — using chess to build mental stimulation, strategic thinking and personal development skills that carry far beyond the sixty-four squares.
75+
young people in the Chess & Life Skills session
2
age categories — under 14 and above 14
22 nd
edition of the East Africa Cup
Iyanna Foundation managed the tournament that followed on 21 and 22 June, working alongside the East Africa Cup secretariat. Players competed in two age categories, with preliminary rounds narrowing each field to a top four, before semi-finals and finals decided the winners on the second day.
“A special medal to the best female player — a small but deliberate choice about who gets recognised on the board.”
Trophies and medals went to the top finishers in both categories, and organisers awarded a special medal to the best female player. It’s a small detail, but it reflects something Iyanna Foundation cares about across all of its chess programmes: making sure girls are recognised and encouraged to compete, not just to take part.
For us, this is what the East Africa Cup chess programme is really about — using a game to build focus, resilience and fair play in young people who will go on to lead their own communities. It’s also a small window into a much bigger partnership: through our work with FIDE, the International Chess Federation, chess has become one of the most effective, low-cost tools we have for reaching children — including our Infinite Chess programme for children with autism.
This story was originally written by Iyanna Foundation for FIDE, the International Chess Federation, and published on fide.com on 4 July 2024. Read the original article on fide.com →
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